West Ham v Millwall fallout: now with racist chants

A small section of Millwall fans allegedly chanted this to Jack Collison, whose dad had died a couple of days earlier in a motorbike accident. Stay classy, you Lions.

Carlton Cole also spoke out, with some dignity, about alleged monkey chants aimed at him by Millwall supporters during Tuesday’s turbulent Carling Cup clash (clash just about covers it): “I heard it but it’s football. I don’t care. I know I’m not a monkey. I might be as strong as a gorilla but I’m not a monkey.”

There were also reports that Millwall’s Jason Price was the target of racist abuse, so you can’t say that West Ham fans – Pat Lampard, anyone? – are blameless.

I’ve written before about how black humour is a vital ingredient in British football, but this sort of stuff is not only repugnant but also depressingly familiar to anyone who has ever attended a football match in Britain between two bitter rivals.

33Comments

I do not understand why you are even posting that chant, Jack Collinson proved himself a true professional and made me proud to support the hammers on a day where some of my fellow supporters made me ashamed.

Why would you post this? Why on earth would you publish this?
A lot went on that night, but frankly people who drag up these personal insults during the aftermath are just as sickening as the people who sung them – you may as well have been there yourself mate.
Nice one.

It really isn’t very clever putting this up on a blog. What point does it prove other than to remind everyone of the moron element in the ground.
I was there and WH fans were as bad as the Millwall fans. Also some of our chants at other grounds can be just as nasty.
My suggestion is you take it off now before you are reminded of some of the tasteless chants from Sunday against Tottenham.

I posted it because I think people shouldn’t hide from the truth of what happens inside football stadia. I think it’s disgusting too, but ignoring such chants – as the mainstream media does all the time – is not going to help resolve this ugly issue. Of course, I respect your right to disagree.

I also respect Jack Collison immensely for the way he’s handled himself since the tragic death of his father. Anyone who reads Pies regularly knows that I have no time for the moronic element that sadly still blights football in this country.

Are you going to publish all West Ham chants that sicken many fans around the country, including their own?
You need to be consistent and not single out one club. I am a West Ham fan, was at the game Monday and travel to many away games.
Believe me, we can be as bad as anyone and yes I agree, they are morons and we should be ashamed of them. However it seems to be ok if the chants are West Ham chants, but in turn you condemn other club’s chants.
You may be trying to prove a point but it isn’t working.

Well said TevorH….need some consistency here Ollie.
I can’t say i’m Defoe’s biggest fan but ‘Where’s your brother gone, where’s your brother gone?!’ when he scored last Sunday is on the same vile level…

Well said TevorH….need some consistency here Ollie.
I can’t say i’m Defoe’s biggest fan but ‘Where’s your brother gone, where’s your brother gone?!’ when he scored last Sunday is on the same vile level…

ollie, i admire your intent and courage but you cant single out one single chant. you now have no choice but to take on every club in the country or else your article achieves nothing and was a very bad mistake.

Totally agree, James. I didn’t hear about those chants. If I had, I’d have no qualms about posting them here. Equally as sick, no doubt.
Note: what many of you fail to realise is that I don’t play the tribal football card, because meat-headed tribalism is something I detest. I don’t mention the Collison chant to “score points” over Millwall fans, because frankly I don’t give a fuck about that side of the game. I just want to see the idiots named and shamed.

I agree with James I was at the spurs game and just as we were leaving I heard 3 or 4 men in the Bobby Moore Lower singing “Where’s your brother gone”. As much as I love football it is only a game and you don’t need to involve personal matters.
I on the other hand am not Defoes biggest fan but that oversteps the mark. And also what a player Jack Collison is, it shows he is commited to West Ham and thats great to see. Millwall should be ashamed of themselves!

Ok, you’ve gone and proved you’ve gone after the different sets of “fans” before and I agree the chants are unacceptable. At the end of the day a lot of people inside (and outside) the ground were not “fans”, they were instead people looking for trouble who had been able to easily pick up a reduced ticket to the game. Many proper fans had most likely already predicted possible trouble & decided not to attend.

The Pat Lampard thing was down to a handful of mindless idiots, just like those handful of Millwall fans who taunted Collison. The difference is that many a true West Ham fan and the club itself came out and condemn those idiots that sung those chants about Pat Lampard and I dare say that there are a vast majority of true Millwall fans that would condemn the Jack Collison taunts, although I haven’t heard or read any condemnations as yet, whereas that idiot of a Millwall captain Neil Harris seems to think that the Millwall fans behaved impeccably. You can’t go around blaming a club and it’s whole fan base for the mindless actions of a few idiots, that’s just as out of order in my book.

Quote ‘A section of Millwall fans allegedly chanted this to Jack Collison’
Were you at the game? Did you hear these chants? Where did you get the info that this was chanted? What tune would that chant be sung to?
Complete and utter b******* That was not chanted!!

@ Steve B: Totally agree. It’s rarely anything more than a very small section of idiots. I know some lovely Millwall fans and some lovely West Ham fans. Equally, I know some Spurs fans who are utter tools.

Wow! So let’s get this straight – you’re ANTI racism and AGAINST making fun of the bereaved! Thanks God someone at last has had the GUTS to speak out on these issues. With your forthright and unconventional views, you should be writing a column somewhere far more prestigious!

Ollie’s right, these pigs need to be called on their behaviour. That is a fucking horrible thing to sing, and to bring back the monkey chants puts English fans on the same level as those neanderthals in Spain. I know there’s plenty of decent West Ham & Millwall fans, but I did hear from a Spurs supporting mate whose brother nearly got knifed for ‘looking jewish

After putting in my reply, I read most of the others and I think that everyone would find all of the the football clubs up and down the country have a vast majority of true, loyal and well behaved fans which is great. However, there is a much darker and sicker element element to fan bases, the minority of mindless idiots that the rest of us feel so much contempt for and EVERY club has them, no exceptions and maybe your post would have been more pertinent if you had of highlighted the situation as a whole instead of focusing on the Millwall or West Ham chants. The other thing that I would like bring up about those disgusting scenes on Tuesday night is that people are quick to blame both clubs and the fans, but at a game like that, you would always get a few old boys from the 80s era on both side that just turn up purely for a ruck, to incite violence and stir up impressionable youngsters as you probably would not see them at any other game because they are probably banned, so therefore have no tickets and every Premier League club unfortunately has them. So it the draw had of been Chelsea or Tottenham vs Millwall for example, then there would have still same scenes at Stamford Bridge or White Hart Lane, so let’s get a bit of true perspective on this for once and it as I said in my previous reply…..You can’t go around blaming a club and it’s whole fan base for the mindless actions of a few idiots, that’s just as out of order in my book.

I was there in the Millwall end and didn’t hear any chants about Collinsons dad. I hadn’t even realised his dad had died until it was mentioned briefly on the news later, nobody mentioned it in conversation around us either.
While I think you are trying to be even handed, for every one of you there’s 20 people like Ash from Dagenahm who say “Millwall should be ashamed of themselves!” Leaving aside the fact that there was no chanting about Collinsons dad as far as I’m aware, would you say that black men should be ashamed of themselves because a few black men have mugged people. Now unless you’re a racist, I’m assuming the answer is no, you wouldn’t find that logic acceptable so why do you think it is with Millwall fans? Stones and glasshouses come to mind.